Some excellent points there Six & Out. I think the personnel of the side is totally messed up and Fletcher really doesn't want to change the side.

Bowling Sajid Mahmood has to be one of the worst choices ever made and I just don't understand how you can bowl two spinners in all of the tests when many (including myself) would have preferred just the one. Ian Blackwell has had an excellent economy rate so far this series considering that the Indian batsmen favour spin bowling. Why not bring a higher regarded spin bowler into the side (Batty) and sacrifice a bowler who can't bowl more than one over without getting shattered.

__________________
Watch this for a perfect about.
James May

Well I won't be getting up for another game in this series, I will stay in bed.

Can't believe I got up at 4.30AM in the morning to watch that complete rubbish. Absolutely appalling. It is looking like the usual end of tour ODI capitulation from England.

The body language was poor today, they looked a beaten side, the celebration of the wickets was the thing that stood out most for me. When Pathan got out you would of thought India has 450 on the board - I don't remember England 'celebrating' wickets in such manner after a breakthrough in the test matches where it was equally as hot and draining. It was depressing to watch. They are on the plane home. It says a little story of its own the fact that virtually everyone knew England would collapse in their innings today.

We can use the lack of Trescothick etc. as a scapegoat but England are an inconsistent disaster waiting to happen in this format even with everyone fit and well.

England have big, big problems in one day cricket and they have to get there acts together and quickly. I am sick to death of having to witness these sorry performances. They should be so much better than this.

Sadly, I can see this series petering out into a 7-0 defeat for England. It just has that feel to it.

I don't want to put words into Rachael's mouth, Six & Out, but I think the point is broader than the team. I'm prepared to assume that the team really wants to win - as you suggest, it's their job. The trouble is that they just haven't got a clue how to win in India. (I said 5-2 at the beginning of the series, but I'm not sure where the two are coming from at the moment.)

The wider point though - and I think this may be what Rachael meant when she referred to England's cricket culture - is that there are plenty of people, England cricket supporters all, outside the team who could not care less if they win, lose or tie an ODI or ODI series. I am not sure what that number is, but speaking for myself, ODIs are nothing more than a side-show to the main event of the test series**: you'll find people here who agree with that (and some who don't, I admit). That is a contrast to the sub-continental audience, for whom ODIs are everything and the tests are less important (hence a 7 ODI series in India). Not saying that that necessarily condemns England to failure, but I suspect it does affect their chances of success.

** Incidentally, just for avoidance of doubt, I don't give a damn about the World Cup either.

__________________
Money won't buy you friends. But it gets you a better class of enemy.
Spike Milligan

ODI matches sell out in this country. The ODI format is internationally far more successful than the Test format. Take a look at the difference in the crowds for the SA v AUD ODI matches and the Test Matches. Therefore a successful England ODI team is as good for the game domestically as it is with Test Matches. That is why we need to desperately address it, change the attitude within the squad and get a firm grip on how England, as a team, approach the ODI format.

Players like Vaughan and Flintoff may try and give their all in every game... but the point I was making is that stand out for the way they rise to the big occasion.... and as players... they are always going to struggle to see pyjama cricket as "the big occasion": Premiership sides have long, quite notoriously, lost focus in the lesser-cup competitions and in end of season games when there is nothing to play for..... and one suspects that however hard they try... most England-qualified cricketers are going to struggle to see a ODI series (ANY ODI series) as a big occasion.

Look at VAughan's finest ODI hour: on the biggest ODI occasion of his career. SAdly... ODI are as common as muck these days.... and learning to really care about the result (as they have learnt to care about Test results) is not really fasible - the time to "hurt" after matches is non-existent as the end of one match singles time to prepare for the next one.... and 3-4-5 games blown hardly seems a big deal when you are likely to play 30+ in a year!

Changing this would take a LONG time: first you'd have to change mindsets in club cricket (where the one day game isa complete sideshow to the "real" cricket) and then you'd have to convince the ICC and the various cricketing boards to axe 70% of the ODI games so that the remaining few are a big deal: I can't see EITHER happening!

I'm not quite sure why you think Shah is a more obvious ODI prospect, I've had a look at their ODI and List A (I think those are the ones which cover domestic one-dayers??) stats and going purely on statistics Bell looks at least as good if not a better prospect.

(Btw, if anyone knows how to get stats spaced out properly on here please tell me!)

__________________
umeiV luphqhsesqe, all’ h luph umwn eiV caran genhsetai.

I don't doubt their commercial success. But here's another way of looking at it: if England can sell out ODIs when they are plainly crap at them, why bother trying to get better? (I guess I don't really mean that, and it would be a dangerous mid- to long-term commercial tactic, but certainly there is no urgency to change the performance if they already don't have a spare seat to sell.)

Another question to which I have no answer - and it may be irrelevant - is who are the paying public coming to see? England's bunch of no-hopers or some visitors who are really pretty good at this form of the game? The point is that a sell-out is not a clear indication that the punters care about England - or even the ODI format particularly. It may just be a chance to see some great visitors in action in a town near you, and often off the usual test circuit.

__________________
Money won't buy you friends. But it gets you a better class of enemy.
Spike Milligan

Entirely a matter of style: Bell's game is based around playing orthodox shots to bad balls: he is at his best when (like Atherton before him) he's playing each ball on it's merits, leaving as much as possible, never over-reaching and then giving the full treatment to the full toss, long hop or whatever.

Shah strikes me as a greater improviser, with a game that is perhaps better suited to working good balls into gaps by opening the face, playing across the line and generally trusting his eye.

In international terms... Bell is in the tradition of Dravid (a potential anchorman)... where Shah would seem to have more potential as an English Inzi - and there's no question as to which of those two has the greater adaptability in the ODI arena.

On current form, well the warm up game Bell has looked good. Shah has played poorly in the first three games and amassed very few runs.

Considering that we are 3-0 down in the series why should we not try out Ian Bell in the side, he has shown what he can do and there can be no harm in letting him give the Indian bowlers some welly, or at least more than Shah has done so far.

If we don't drop Shah then take out one of the keepers, blimey the side is a total mess, why not drop Sajid Mahmood and use more part timers?

__________________
Watch this for a perfect about.
James May

But surely if you were looking to use this series to give players some experience and see what their game is like it would be a good idea to actually get a proper look at how Bell would be likely to bat in ODI's, or should he just be ignored for ODI's because of a preconceived idea of how he is likely to bat without giving him a decent chance to show what he can actually do?

Also, shouldn't we actually be trying to win our ODI series? I'm sure we'd be further along the road to having a good ODI side if we were aiming to win every game rather than using them to try players out, which is what we seem to be doing at the moment.

__________________
umeiV luphqhsesqe, all’ h luph umwn eiV caran genhsetai.